Improvement in the purification of coal and ores



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JESSE BURROUGHS, OF RIDGWAY, PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN THE PURIFICATION OF COAL AND ORES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 27,689, dated April 3, 1860.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JEssE BURROUGHS, of Ridgway, in the county of Elk and State of Pennsylvania, have invented or discovered a new and useful Process for Desulphurizing or Purifying Mineral Coal and the various kinds of Ores; and I do hereby declare that the followingis afull, clear, and exact description of the same and of the manner of applying it to the purposes mentioned.

My invention consists in the use of certain chemicals as applied to the coal or ores in a heated state by conveying it mechanically into the coal or ores by the action of steam, as will be explained.

Mineral coal has in it from a trace to as much as five per cent. of sulphur, and in describing the proportions of the ingredients which I use I wish to be understood as referring to coal of a highly-sulphurous character.

I take three quarts of common salt, two pounds of niter. two ounces of potash, and one pound of good burned lime, and these articles are mixed with about thirty gallons of water. This mixture is put into a boiler and subjected to high ebullition, the ingredients themselves aiding in the excitation of the mass. The vapor thrown off by this energetic boiling takes with it mechanically minute portions of the above named ingredients, and this vapor (steam) surcharged with the ingredients is jetted into the coal, and it is thus prepared for burning. The heat of the steam aids in allowing itself and the ingredients which it carries with itself in minute particles to penetrate the coal.

When the coal is less sulphurous I reduce the proportions of the above-named articles in about the same proportion of reduction ofsulphur. I do not say that this process improves the coal solely by acting upon the sulphur which itcontains, forit may, and probably does, act beneficially upon other matter in the coal to improve its quality for blacksmithing purposes. The steam performs in itself a highly valuable property or function, and, in addition to its beneficial action in improving the coal,

it also acts as a vehicle for carrying into it the other ingredients composing the compound.

I treat ores in precisely the same manner as I treat the coal, and as above set forth, and

also increase or diminish the proportions of ingredients above named as I find the ore more or less hard or more or less mixed with impurities or foreign matter injurious in their reduction to metals.

same nature as those mentioned by me and.

mixed with water and in a cold state have been thrown over or placed upon coal to prepare it for burning; but in this case if the coal is handled or exposed to the weather the mixture is lost. By my plan of causing it under high heat to penetrate the pores, seams, or cracks of the coal it is permanently fixed there and cannot drop or be washed off. The vapor of water (steam) has been injected into coke to improve its burning quality, and steam in many ways has been injected or thrown into coal and ores in the manufacture of iron; but these things differ from mine, inasmuch as the steam is introduced while burning or to promote combustion, while my process is for preparing crude coal to be burned afterward at any time or any place. The steam, to be sure, in all these cases is the active agent, as itis in my case. Of the ingredients which I use there may be their exact chemical equivalents, and to simply change them for their equivalents I should consider a violation of the process.

What I claim is- Preparing coal for burning or ore for smelting by steaming it with a liquid composition of water, salt, niter, potash, and lime in the proportions substantially as herein set forth.

JESSE BURROUGHS.

Witnesses:

A. B. SToUeEToN, E. COHEN. 

